I'm not sure how 11 is set up, on 10 you would go Menu>System>Preferences> Startup Applications. Open Startup Applications and you can add programs to start automatically when you start your computer. The other tab called Options has a tic box to automatically remember running applications when logging out. (Don't know how well that one works...I've never used it.)

stephaneeybert wrote:So there is no way to save and restaure this gnome session ?

I have just migrated from Ubuntu 11.04 to Linux Mint 11. As a consequence, I do not dare to claim that it is not possible with Linux Mint, but the feature has deliberately been discarded from Ubuntu 11.04. Because Linux Mint 11 is based on Ubuntu 11.04, it is likely that Mint does not offer that option anymore either.

There is a bug report on that topic in the Ubuntu Launchpad bug report site, but I do not remember which one. You should be able to easily find it. There was a fierce debate about that topic in the bug report. The main argument of the development team was that too many programs do not properly restore their data after being stopped. Hence, the development team decided that it was better to suppress the feature instead of leaving something that works half of the time. Many users were angry about it and preferred something not perfect to nothing. The development team did not change its mind.

stephaneeybert wrote:Thanks for the explanation. I was quite happy with it. It restaured fine my shells and firefox..

Yes, I understand. I did not use it. I prefer to always start a session with the same programs opened irrespective to the desktop state when I had shut down the computer. But many people had good arguments to keep the option alive.

Wow, just started trying out gnome via mint - dropping session support is close to being a deal breaker for me. I heard the Gnome devs were getting pretty arrogant and patronising, I see what people mean.